Our relationship status affects our choices

London, Feb 13 (IANS) Whether we are married or single, our preferences are likely to be individuals having the same relationship status, a new study has revealed.

The study found that people like to believe that their way of life "whether single or couple" is the best for everyone, especially if they think their relationship status is unlikely to change, Daily Mail reported.

Published in the academic journal Psychological Science, the study suggests, this bias may influence the way we treat others, even in situations where relationship status should not matter.

US researchers found that people were more likely to view both applicants for jobs and candidates for political office more favourably if they had the same relationship status.

Earlier research showed feeling "stuck" within a particular social system leads people to justify and rationalise that system.

Kristin Laurin of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and David Kille and Richard Eibach of the University of Waterloo wondered whether this might also apply to a person's relationship status.

Laurin and her colleagues hypothesised that this would happen most often when people think their relationship status would not change. And, this is exactly what they found.

Their first study revealed that the more stable participants considered their relationship status to be, the more they idealised that status as a norm for others to follow.

This applied to both -- single and coupled participants -- regardless of how personally happy they were with their status.